USB Kernel Problems Making Install Impossible

[Chef Niko]

For a bit of background, I've been a long time Red Hat (Fedora for personal) user. I wrote my RHCE test 15+ years ago, so I'm more knowledgeable about that kernel, so its what I've stuck with. However, recently I decided to try Ubuntu, because it has the most support for gaming on Linux, which is something I'd like to do more of. I've also read a lot of claims that Ubuntu is the easiest Linux distro to use. Unfortunately, I can't even get it to install right, which is quite frustrating.

At first, everything seemed to be okay. I ran the live cd off a USB image. It completed the file check, then booted up. I verified that all my hardware was working fine, then proceeded to install. Before the installer even made any changes to disk, it hard locked my system, so I had to reboot. After the reboot, my (USB) keyboard and mouse no longer worked in the Ubuntu live image (or Windows on another drive for that matter!).

At this point, I did a bit of searching the web to find out what was going on. I started with the notable USB errors that were shown during boot, and found that I needed to turn on IOMMU in the BIOS. After turning this on, my mouse and keyboard worked again, but my USB3 drive which had the live image on it did not, so of course it failed to start and left me at a busybox (I think the term is?).

Another possible option I found was to use the "iommu=soft" option in the grub config. Unfortunately, I can't do that without a working keyboard. So, I'm not really sure what I can do to get this to work without some outdated hardware (that I don't own), which really isn't a good solution in the first place. I'll try editing the image in another OS and see how that goes, but I really shouldn't have to do that either.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of things that could be better in this situation. As far as I know, this problem is specific to the debian based kernel (Red Hat, and from what I've read BSD don't have these problems), so that should really be fixed/improved upon... especially for something claiming to be the easiest distro to use. I looked up how to file a bug report, and everything I found says to use the application in the OS, but again, I can't even get it to boot, so that's not an option.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to get Ubuntu installed and working with full USB support?

TIA!

[Snowhog]

First, welcome to KFN. Second, providing us with information about your PC (brand/model) and its hardware specs would be helpful.

[Chef Niko]

Thanks for the welcome! That's always a nice way to start off, and I appreciate it.

I have a custom built system, so I can't give you a make/model, but here's some of the hardware info. Just let me know if there's anything else in particular you're looking for.

Base Board Information
      Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
      Product Name: 990FXA-UD3

Processor Information
      Socket Designation: CPU 1
      Type: Central Processor
      Family: Unknown
      Manufacturer: AMD               
      ID: 20 0F 60 00 FF FB 8B 17
      Version: AMD FX-8320E Eight-Core Processor

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590] (rev c7) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

I did manage to get Ubuntu installed by using a USB 2.0 flash drive I found, but that won't always be an option, so it isn't the best long term solution. Another thing is that a system update blew away my grub config changes. Is there a way I can automate setting the "iommu=soft" option to persist (or get added again) after updates, so I don't have to remember and do it manually each time, after the system fails to boot? Of course, that is assuming we can't find a better solution.

[claydoh]

Product Name: 990FXA-UD3

Maybe:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1220...3-except-usb-3
and similar results, as this seems to be a very long-time issue with this board:
https://www.google.com/search?channe...FXA-UD3+ubuntu

Might be worth checking if you have the latest bios version available, and seeing if there are any iommu settings in the bios settings

[Chef Niko]

Thanks for the link, it looks similar to a few I've read already. I have had some difficulty with this board, specifically installing an operating system is always a hard time. However, as I said in my first post, Fedora doesn't have these USB/IOMMU problems, so it isn't just the board.

I'm still trying to get Kubuntu running smoothly. I'm not sure exactly what the problem is right now, but it's sometimes having input problems... dropping typed characters and such. It looks like lag, but the system hardware isn't being taxed. I expect it may be related to this IOMMU setting, but I can't be sure.

And now my audio device is not configured properly, so I have to go fix that. I love how powerful and customizable Linux is, but it's such a pain to get configured and keep working correctly.

Anyway, I'm making progress... so that's good!

[woodsmoke]

Hi Chef Niko and welcome to the friendliest forum on the net!

I love building hardware stuff, I've done a lot of installs on various USB sticks and am running a custom build "open computer out of the box, hanging on a wall with blue lights" on it now. so... GLAD YOU ARE HERE!!!

And love that 8 core processor!

This is just a dumb question, but is there any chance that this might have even the slightest relationship to the "usb" stick at all?

Things like

PNY

have always worked for me to install an OS, just treat it like installing on a spinning platter.

But, Sandisk has their own proprietary stuff that supposedly gives access to media, etc. and they have always "had problems", I usually installed Ext3 and later Ext4 on them and sometimes still could not get rid of what seemed to be a small bit of "hard code" on the usb stick itself.

So, just a question, of little worth.

And, again, love the hardware and I think that you would probably be able to give quite a bit of advice to folks popping into the forum!

wooddon'tbeastrangersmoke

Please don't be a stranger!

[Chef Niko]

Hey woodsmoke! Thanks for the warm welcome!

Your computer sounds awesome! Custom builds are a lot of fun, and I wish I had some extra cash to do more of them. I know the hardware is getting old, but yeah 8 cores is more than I need! I'll get myself a Ryzen soon enough.

There's no such thing as a dumb question, thanks for throwing it out there! However, I don't think it's the USB stick itself. I've tried 3 of them now, which should rule that out. I know what you mean with Sandisk utilities and such... they're a nice idea, but I always blow them away.

This motherboard is actually my backup motherboard, I originally was running an ASUS ROG somethingorother with a lot more features like dual bios, but it died on me. Motherboards are always dying on me. CPUS and GPUS and RAM last forever, but I'm lucky to get a mobo to survive for 3+ years. Maybe it's me... I don't know. But, on that note, do you have any recommendations for a board or even manufacturer you've had good success with?

As for this original issue, I've made a lot of progress. I nearly have everything working, there's just one small issue with pulseaudio still.

Here's my current config:
[BIOS] IOMMU enabled (REQUIRED to get USB working and resolve errors)
[BIOS] xhci workaround DISABLED
[BIOS] ehci workaround DISABLED
[BIOS] VIA Chipset DISABLED (this might not be necessary, needs more testing)
[GRUB] amd_iommu=on (REQUIRED to get USB3 working)
[GRUB] iommu=pt (REQUIRED to resolve I/O errors)

I'll try to be helpful after I finish sorting out my own mess, and take a bit of a break. I've spent far more hours than I wanted to getting this all running, but it will be worth it in the end. I'm almost there, and it's already looking very pretty!

[woodsmoke]

Hi
I do not know that I really have much to add.

I "always" ran any kind of "plain jane" "i-386" for years, usually NOT in a Dell machine, I have never had much luck with them.

I then "always" ran an AMD...again, pretty much what I found at a store that I liked.

I used to donat "towers" with whatever i could find in them, that was before "Clinton" sent all the "computers to South America", which then allowed all the "businesses" to get rid of anything prior to a "Pentium" so that swayed the availablity of hardware big time.

Then add into that the fact that it was always easier for me to make a thing that ran mainly on Nvidia cards And I have a small collection that got into the range of 6800 processors.

Then i got my first "dual core" AMD and was very happy with it, since I do a lot of "school stuff"...powerpoints, audio, etc.

Then I built the wall computer with an AMD dual core and the card "pugs" broke for both a video card and then for a weird USB multi port thing.

So I got an Intel with an onboard MOBO and have not fiddled with video stuff for a couple of years. The wall computer runs on a 50 diagonal t.v. and I have run both the plain video and now the HDMI and I do not like the "coolness" of the video presentation, but it is much faster so I run it..

At one time, a decade ago, a long time ago and far far away, I had a really long running "dystipian" universe science fiction story that had more reads that any other thread in the forum, on the order of ...49,000, that is 49 THOUSAND reads and was "the talk of the town for years but the forum collapsed be cause it was being run as a "kind of scam" to build parts of what we now call WINE.

But, sprinkled in those posts were dozens of images of computers that i had built with Spiderman, or a Harley Motorcycle, or a Chevy Bel-air built into the inside of the case, and paited, usually for teenagers.

But,again, in the space of a year, that all just went away into South America and now I just hang round here and not doing much but "cheering people on'.

I am really just an old hardware kinda guy and use a LOT of office applications at the college and can offer information on a lot of that but that is about all.

Right now, I mostly work on dissecting the GUIs of two apps, one is ZOOM(tm) and now, the college has got off into the clutcheds of MS Teams{tm) and since I run Ubuntu i can speak to certain things that have a bearing on how something is NOT working in MSland ( such as the xml code that MS inserts into stuff like a Powerpoint ( tm ) slide that will mess up a teacher's carefully curated presentation and then MS trashes it just to force a person to "upgrade" to the next most expensive version.

But, again, that is all kind of going by the by also.

The college limped through using Zoom(tm) to get a student to view a lecture from their home when quarrantined, but even though it actually works "better", the college is being rebated a LOT by MS to move to Teams(tm) and that is how I ended up fiddling with Xine, as can be seen in another thread.

I really am the low man on the totem pole in terms of all that Linux stuff, and coding and command line and all that.

But hey, I really like that you are a hardware person we need more of your type around here!

woodsmoke